French philosopher Rene Descartes famously said “I think, therefore I am.” But in the digital age, what we think and how we live are being influenced in a big way by just a handful of tech firms: We are informed by Google and entertained by Apple; we socialize on Facebook and shop on Amazon. It’s time to reclaim our identities and reassert our intellectual independence, according to Franklin Foer, a national correspondent for The Atlantic and former editor of The New Republic, in his book, World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech. He recently joined the Knowledge@Wharton show, which airs on SiriusXM channel 111, to explain why these firms’ hold on society is a cautionary tale for the future.An edited transcript of the conversation follows.

Knowledge@Wharton:Tech companies such as Amazon have truly transformed themselves over the last couple of decades [and become a big part of our lives].

Franklin Foer: Amazon is really one of the most impressive specimens in the entire history of American business. It started off as a bookstore, then it morphed into becoming the ‘everything’ store. And it’s morphed beyond that. We know about Amazon Web Services and how it powers the cloud. We’ve seen how it just keeps expanding, culminating most recently in its decision to purchase Whole Foods. The same could be said for Google, which set out to organize knowledge but then became Alphabet, which has this massive portfolio, including a life-sciences company that aims to make us immortal.Where do these companies end? Do we have a problem with their size? These are questions that go to the fundamental nature of our economy and whether we can really have a competitive, capitalistic system. There are more fundamental questions [we need to ask] about the future of our culture and our democracy because these companies amass tremendous troves of data about us. Those troves of data are portraits of our psyche. They use this incredibly powerful information about us in order to alter our behavior. There’s a huge amount of convenience that comes with that, but there are also real, important questions that need to be asked of these companies.In the last couple of months, we’ve started to ask some of these questions. The outcome of the last election, with the proliferation of fake news and the debate over Facebook’s culpability in that question, has triggered a real backlash against that company. There are a number of flashpoints that have shifted the debate [about society and technology] considerably.Knowledge@Wharton: There are three or four companies, which are giants in the tech world, that have unbelievable amounts of control over so many things in our society.Foer: Absolutely. The Europeans call them GAFA: Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple. There are a couple of reasons why these guys have triggered so much anxiety and why I found myself drawn to asking hard questions of them. The first is the accumulation of data. The second is the way in which that data ends up getting leveraged. We’re in the realm of algorithms and machine learning and artificial intelligence, where the advantages that accrue to the companies that have mastery over those things end up compounding over time.So the gap grows between those big four and everybody else. We may already have reached the point where people have stopped trying to chase them. In Silicon Valley, the greatest ambition now is not to displace Google or Facebook. It’s to get bought by Google and Facebook. There’s a real question about [the future of] entrepreneurship here. Where are the opportunities? If you cease to exist in an economy where you can displace those big players, the incentive to aim for the stars and to try to create those kinds of unicorn companies diminishes.Knowledge@Wharton: You write in the book, “As these companies have expanded, marketing themselves as champions of individuality and pluralism, their algorithms have pressed us into conformity and laid waste to privacy. They’ve produced an unstable and narrow culture of misinformation and put us on a path to a world without private contemplation, autonomous thought or solitary introspection. A world without mind.”Foer: There’s so much about technology that’s so wonderful. I have a daughter who’s 12 years old. When she was born, there was no iPhone, there was no Kindle, there was hardly social media. Over the course of this decade, incredible things have happened. They’re real monuments to human creativity, and it’s hard not to bow down before these creations.

But the magical qualities of these creations shouldn’t distract us, shouldn’t preclude us from asking skeptical questions because the stakes here are supremely high. Over the course of the long history of humanity, we’ve always had tools that have been extensions of us. You could argue that technology is one of the things that defines us as a species.But what’s getting automated right now isn’t upper-body strength. We’re not automating our ability to plough the fields or make widgets. We’re talking about the automation of mental exercises. These companies have technologies that are intellectual technologies. [They come] between us and reality. They are the filter we use to get news and information. They intend to create virtual realities that we’re going to be inhabiting, and they’re trying to complete this long merger between man and machine.Soon, these technologies are going to be not just worn on our wrists or worn as glasses. They’re going to be implanted within us. We need to ask the biggest questions about what makes us human, what are the things that we want to preserve in this transition? You can’t fight the flow of technology. But we should also assume that, as human beings, we have agency. We have the ability to shape our own destiny, and we should be active in doing that, not just passively accepting whatever comes next.Knowledge@Wharton: How impactful have some of these changes been on retail? Malls have gone significantly down in the last few years, and manufacturing has become more automated.Foer: Let’s just take that one question of the future of retail, for instance. My dad was a small-business owner. He had a small chain of stores. He taught me a real appreciation for the value of small business and capitalism. He was also — in a weird combination — an antitrust lawyer, which really affected my thinking about capitalism, the virtues of having a competitive, diverse marketplace and what that means for us as consumers. But we also need to think about what it means for us as citizens.While prices may be low [with automation], we need to start asking questions about the future of work. As stores disappear, a big source of jobs is evaporating. I think about it in terms of what makes life meaningful. If we live in a world where we’re planted in our own houses and we’re able to summon every movie, every book to our fingertips, that takes away a great opportunity to go out and experience culture in a collective sort of way. I think about commerce as being a fundamental social experience. When I go to the store, I get out of my house. I interact with other people. It may seem trivial, it might seem incredibly superficial, but those interactions are really important to us in the way that we think about our fellow human beings and about the quality of our own lives.What comes next when commerce is entirely virtual? How will human interaction change? How will our society change? Are we happy with those changes? At what price [comes] convenience and efficiency? I don’t pretend that these are easy answers, and I don’t pretend that we’re not accruing incredible benefits from all of these changes. But we should also spend a little time thinking about what we’re losing in the process.Knowledge@Wharton: How do you see Facebook’s role in how we consume media changing in the future?Foer: I want to talk about this from a very narrow perspective, which is that I’m a journalist. Over the course of my career as a journalist, the profession has become extremely dependent on Google and Facebook. As advertising markets collapsed, there became this need to scale up in a quick sort of way, and the only way to get revenue was through growing traffic. The only way to grow traffic was by relying on these platforms. That meant that journalism needed to master these platforms. It’s a very unhealthy state of dependence. The values of those platforms end up becoming the values of everybody who depends on those platforms.As an editor, the type of work that we did changed because we needed to succeed in Facebook. It’s kind of a debasing thing where the headlines we wrote had to be sensationalistic in a way that could travel on Facebook. The subjects that we had to write about had to tap into the hive mind that existed on Facebook. Instead of shaping the news, instead of making choices that were ennobling for our readers, trying to expand the minds of our readers, we ended up doing a whole lot of pandering. It can’t be healthy in the long run.I edited a magazine that was left of center. The mood that exists in the world right now is not left of center, it’s kind of left. I found that, just to get traffic, there was this temptation constantly to pander to what politicians call “the base.” I see this all the time. It’s a dissent to be somebody who disagrees with whatever the consensus is — it’s to be cast out. Ultimately, it’s just not healthy for our politics to have these two tribes.We think about our politics as extremely polarized, and it is. But it’s also extremely conformist right now. If you live in one of these two tribes, your informational ecosystem is extremely restricted. Facebook is a feedback loop where you get what you want to hear. We just get driven further and further into our corners through this technology that’s giving us what we want.Knowledge@Wharton: What about Apple’s role?Foer: Of the four big companies, Apple is the one that troubles me the least. I dislike the way in which it collects data. But at the end of the day, Apple is a hardware company and less involved in the sorts of intellectual technologies that I’ve described. Apple has done things to remake the music industry, for instance, that probably on balance I don’t like. But if I were to rank the four companies in terms of their perniciousness, I would put Apple at the bottom of the list.Knowledge@Wharton: What about Google?Foer: To me, the problem with Google is its ever-expanding goals. The thing that bothers me about Google is that there’s almost a religious intensity to what they do. [Co-founders] Sergey Brin and Larry Page come from the world of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is this incredible thing, but there are different ways to practice artificial intelligence. There are all sorts of ways in which it’s an incredible convenience. But there are other people who want to achieve what’s called ‘AI complete,’ which is to create an artificial intelligence that is truly akin to a human intelligence, that has an understanding of language. There’s a whole, almost messianic vision that comes with it.I’m sure you’ve heard of Ray Kurzweil, an amazing engineer who has this idea of singularity, of this moment where we completely merge with the machine, and the machines become smarter than the humans. We end up downloading our brains into this virtual world where we live forever. It’s really a religious vision. Ray Kurzweil is the director of engineering at Google now, and I think that Larry Page has a version of this sort of fantasy that he entertains. That’s his ambition for the Company.It’s a bit of sci-fi fantasy, so I’m not really concerned about singularity. What I’m concerned about is that when you believe you’re on this kind of messianic mission, and when you treat your job with that kind of religious fervor, all of the temporal concerns, all of the concerns about law and ethics and the present and what you might be destroying, end up getting thrown out the window. This is a problem that I have more generally with these companies.You might think that I wrote a left-wing book, but I think I wrote a pretty deeply conservative book where I’m really worried about the fate of important institutions. There’s a lot of wisdom built into the things that we’ve developed over time. I worry that some of these companies are just so fervent, so hubristic and self-confident about what they’re doing that they don’t really pause to consider what’s being destroyed in the course of rushing to a glorious future.Knowledge@Wharton: We’ve also transformed into a society where income inequality is a staggering issue.Foer: Absolutely. We need to look at the ways in which these companies exacerbate the divide, the ways in which they sit on these piles of cash. If you work for one of these companies, your life is amazing, right? We all know about their famous corporate campuses and the incredible benefits that come with working for one of these monopolistic firms. But what we see a lot of in the economy is not just a gap between the rich and poor in the aggregate sense. There’s almost a gap between the rich and poor within each of these sectors.If you’re the second or third player in one of these fields, you don’t get paid the same because these companies collect the monopolistic rent. They are able to because they have such a dominance in their field and they don’t actually have to worry about competition. They can sit on piles of cash and distribute it in whatever way they want. They can hoard it, as Apple does, or they can distribute it to their workers in terms of benefits that keep their workers tethered to those companies. But everybody else in the economy doesn’t have the pleasure of benefiting from monopolistic rents, so the gap grows.

U.S. President Donald Trump made it clear last week that he is close to withdrawing from the Iran accord unless Iran agrees to make changes. His chances for success are slim - and his blustering risks a dangerous escalation. By DER SPIEGEL staffIt helps to imagine Bob Corker as an incurable optimist. The Republican Senator from Tennessee is chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and thought for eight long months that he would be able to transform U.S. President Donald Trump into a responsible politician. In particular, he had hoped that he could rein in the president's capricious foreign policy through a combination of personal attention and gentle pressure. But now, even Bob Corker has given up.Last week, Corker referred in a tweet to the White House as an "adult day care center" and said in an interview with the New York Times that the president runs the White House like "a reality show." In the same interview, he also said that Trump could be in the process of setting the country "on the path to World War III." It would be difficult to imagine a more scathing critique coming from a nominal party ally.Corker is particularly driven by the fear of a military escalation of the kind that could even end in a nuclear exchange. North Korea, which has been a target of steady threats from Trump, is the most obvious possible theater. But the U.S. president now seems to be in the process of heating up an additional conflict that could be much more dangerous: the confrontation with Iran. Ever since the campaign, Trump has repeatedly said that the U.S. nuclear deal with Iran is "the worst deal ever negotiated" and has promised to back out of it.After 12 years of difficult negotiations, the deal was finally agreed to in July 2015 by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council together with Germany and the European Union. Iran agreed to mothball its nuclear weapons program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. Since then, almost all of the country's stockpile of enriched uranium has been taken out of the country, two-thirds of the centrifuges, used to enrich uranium, dismantled and 400 inspections performed. "It is a durable agreement that is achieving its target of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons," says a high-ranking EU diplomat.Trump, though, is unimpressed. He needs to show some sort of progress to his voters and with things going poorly on the domestic front, he has focused his efforts on destroying the foreign policy successes achieved by his predecessors. The U.S. looks set to back out of the NAFTA free-trade deal while the country is in the process of withdrawing from the Paris climate deal and UNESCO. Now, the fate of the nuclear treaty is at stake. In a speech on Friday, Trump took an aggressive line on Iran and threatened to cancel the accord - only for the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, to say on Sunday that Washington would remain party to the agreement for the time being.

Searching for Proof

Every 90 days, the president must certify that the Iranians are adhering to the requirements laid out by the deal and that the suspension of the sanctions are justified by the agreement's contribution to U.S. national security. Trump has twice before grudgingly certified the deal, including in July when it was reported that he was enraged at the prospect of having to approve it. Why, he asked an adviser, should he sign on to a deal that he felt was a disaster? He also threatened that he wouldn't certify it again.For months, Trump's team has thus been searching for a way out of the deal, issuing threats against Tehran and collecting arguments to justify allowing the agreement to fail. Trump has reportedly even pressured U.S. intelligence to find proof that Iran is violating the nuclear agreement. His government is likewise eager to label Iran as a supporter of terrorism. In early October, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center issued a surprise warning of possible attacks in the U.S. perpetrated by the Iran-sponsored militia Hezbollah.Simply withdrawing from the treaty is not a simple matter, but a Trump refusal to recertify would almost certainly mark the beginning of the end. Furthermore, Congress would then have the possibility of slapping new sanctions on Iran's nuclear program within 60 days - an opening that many Republicans would no doubt seek to take advantage of. That, though, would almost certainly be interpreted by the Iranians as a violation of the treaty, leading to their own withdrawal.Iranian Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi recently threatened that Iran has the ability to resume enriching uranium to the 20-percent level within just five days. From there, it's not terribly far to constructing a bomb. And that is something that Israel would like to prevent at all costs, even militarily if need be. Ben Rhodes, formerly Barack Obama's deputy national security adviser, warned in a September interview with U.S. radio station NPR of a "second nuclear crisis" in the Middle East, one that could leave the U.S. facing the decision "as to whether to allow Iran to go forward with its nuclear program or to start another war in the Middle East."Yet instead of new sanctions, a renegotiation of the deal is likewise a possibility - and that appears to be the plan being pursued by moderates in the Trump administration, a trio made up of the national security adviser, the secretary of state and the secretary of defense, all of whom are in favor of keeping the deal. They are trying to walk the fine line of allowing Trump to symbolically distance himself from the deal while at the same time keeping the agreement alive.

The 'Spirit' of the Deal

The strategy will be that of portraying Iran's Revolutionary Guard as the villains who are spreading terror and destabilizing the region as a way of pressuring Europe into tightening the treaty and adding requirements. U.S. Congress could even decide to list the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.The primary criticism Trump and his hardliner allies level at Iran is that the country is violating the "spirit" of the deal - by testing missiles, for example, or by supporting terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and sending fighters into Iraq and Syria to expand its influence in the region. Virtually everybody agrees that such behavior by Iran is extremely problematic, including those who support the nuclear deal with Tehran. But the deal has no "spirit," it is nothing but a sober, extremely technical agreement. And it doesn't focus at all on Iranian foreign policy or even on its missile program - something that Trump and many other Republicans would like to change.Trump and his team would also like to tighten certain clauses in the accord, such as those pertaining to where and how often inspections are carried out. Or the fact that Iran will be able to resume enriching uranium once the treaty expires in 2025, if only within the framework of a nuclear non-proliferation treaty.Iran experts like Ray Takeyh from the independent think tank Council on Foreign Relations, agrees with the Trump administration that the treaty is far from perfect. Takeyh, too, is critical of the fact that the accord automatically expires after 10 years and that Iran is even now allowed to partially enrich uranium, albeit to a low level. Furthermore, Iranian researchers are allowed to continue developing centrifuges, with which they can produced fissile material. But what the Trump administration is planning goes far beyond a few minor adjustments to the nuclear treaty. It marks an attempt to isolate Iran in the region and to stop its expansionary policies and its financing of terrorist organizations. Those are all understandable goals - but there is one thing standing in the way: reality.William Burns, one of the negotiators of the treaty and deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration, wrote recently in the New York Times that in a perfect world, we could delete Iran's knowledge of the nuclear fuel cycle, eliminate its missiles and transform it into a more docile regional power. "But we don't live in an ideal world. Diplomacy requires difficult compromises. And the nuclear deal achieved the best of the available alternatives."

A Danger of War

The other alternative would be yet another confrontation with Iran."There is a danger of war. Not right now, but perhaps in the future," says Foad Izadi, a professor of international relations in Tehran, adding that Iran is not taking the threats coming from Washington lightly. "We don't believe that Trump has a problem with Iran, rather he has a problem with what his predecessors have left for him," Izadi says. The Iranians, the professor continues, are primarily concerned by Trump's close relations with Israel and Saudi Arabia and believe that both of them are a negative influence when it comes to Iran.Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has consistently said that the Iranians still want to remain in the deal despite the fact that the country's economy has not benefited to the degree expected from the lifting of sanctions. One reason is that it remains difficult to do business with Iran, with the U.S. government continuing to pressure banks to refuse to carry out money transfers to or from Iran. Almost all financial institutions adhere to these informal instructions out of concern that they might otherwise be slapped with painful penalties. The result is that it is almost impossible to find banks willing to finance large projects in Iran, meaning that necessary investments in aging infrastructure have not yet been made.If the Americans were to reimpose sanctions or seek to renegotiate elements of the deal, Tehran would presumably try to isolate Washington by working together with the Europeans, Russia and China. But Iran likely wouldn't accept any limitations to its missile program or on its involvement in the region. At his first press conference following his re-election in spring, Rouhani announced that he would be carrying out additional missile tests. "American officials should know that whenever we need to technically test a missile, we will do so and we will not wait for their permission," he said. Were the U.S. to list the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terror organization, it would bring trade relations with Iran to a virtual standstill, says former U.S. diplomat Wendy Sherman, who was the Obama administration's lead negotiator for the Iran nuclear deal. Experts believe that the Revolutionary Guard directly or indirectly controls up to 40 percent of the Iranian economy. As such, Sherman warns against taking this step. "Sanctions on the Revolutionary Guards already exist. We would be setting a far-reaching precedent were we to label a part of a state as a terrorist organization."

Domestic Debates in Iran

The head of the Revolutionary Guards has threatened that such a step would be met with attacks on U.S. bases in the region. Though the threat is likely little more than aggressive posturing, it serves to demonstrate the potential for conflict.Ultimately, the chances for making significant changes to the deal are thus extremely slim. Indeed, any attempt to reopen elements of the deal could result in the collapse of the entire accord, even if it could be months before that happens. That would strengthen the radicals in Tehran who feed off anti-American animosity and who were against the deal from the beginning.That helps explain why Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Sharif recently told his European counterparts that it was imperative to take into account the domestic political debates in Iran. Were the U.S. to list the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, he said, it could increase hardliner pressure on the government to such a degree that Rouhani would have no other choice but to withdraw from the nuclear deal. During a debate in Iranian parliament last Wednesday, for example, the government was forced to defend the agreement from vicious attacks. "We went through hell," an Iranian source said in describing the debate.The path forward also depends on the Europeans. An end of the nuclear deal would be particularly painful for Europe given that it is widely seen on the Continent as a showpiece of EU diplomacy. Helga Schmid, general secretary of the European External Action Service, is seen as the architect of the agreement and on the sidelines of the recent UN General Assembly, she led discussions aimed at saving it. Furthermore, German Chancellor Angele Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron have spoken with Trump to argue against withdrawal. German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has spoken on the phone several times with his U.S. counterpart Rex Tillerson.Last Tuesday, though, Tillerson told Gabriel that he can't do any more than he already has, indicating that the Europeans would have to approach Trump directly. "We will continue to work to keep the U.S. in the agreement," Gabriel says diplomatically.On Monday, EU foreign ministers met in Luxembourg and discussed the Iran deal, among other issues. In the statement released following the meeting, they reaffirmed that "the EU is committed to the full and effective implementation of all parts of the JCPOA," referring to the accord's formal name, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. European diplomats are also concerned about the effects of a collapsed Iran accord might have on the conflict with North Korea. The Iran deal, after all, is the only blueprint available for how talks with the regime in Pyongyang might be initiated. "The worst thing you can do is try to dismantle it," the EU high representative for foreign affairs, Federica Mogherini, told PBS in an interview last Wednesday. "The message that America would send to the rest of the world is that America cannot be trusted, because a deal that American voted for just two years ago in the UN Security Council, ... a deal that American helped to shape enormously, would be rejected by the same country."

Supporters of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program gathered at Columbus Circle in New York last month. Credit Matthew Pillsbury/Benrubi Gallery On Nov. 9, 2016, millions of Americans woke up with a crushing sense that something was terribly wrong with their country.Donald Trump’s election inspired such moral revulsion and political outrage that by that afternoon, parts of the American electorate had taken to calling themselves “the resistance,” evoking the guerrillas who took to the hills and fought the Nazis during World War II. Just a day before, many of these same people were enthusiastically casting their ballots for a centrist Democrat; suddenly they were self-styled revolutionaries.The day after Mr. Trump’s inauguration saw enormous protests across the country that incorporated a panoply of groups and interests. For those of us on the left, the millions of protesters in pink hats and the dads toting funny signs was a promising sight: Could this be the moment that liberals were converted into radicals?The years since the 2008 financial crisis have seen a wave of protest movements, including Occupy, Black Lives Matter and immigrant rights campaigns. What’s different now — and what’s encouraging — is that new people are getting involved, those for whom the status quo before Mr. Trump’s arrival in the White House didn’t necessarily seem so bad.But the resistance can’t just adopt the symbols and language of revolutionaries. It has to involve the whole package — including radical leadership and ideas. To win meaningful victories, the resistance needs to look beyond the White House or even Congress, and toward solutions that attack inequality and injustice at its roots. That will require not just energy and money but also listening to and working with activists who have been resisting since long before Mr. Trump arrived on the political scene and who might have opinions far to the left of the Democratic Party.Mr. Trump — like right-wing populists across Europe — rode into power on waves of discontent with unaccountable globalization and growing inequality that have increased even under liberal and social-democratic parties. As the French economist Thomas Piketty demonstrated in “Capital in the 21st Century,” inequality’s staggering growth shows no signs of stopping. And it’s pulling democracy apart at the seams; no one but the rich feels represented.The failure of the Democratic Party to reverse this over the past 40 years can’t be overstated, which is precisely why the resistance cannot just be about getting Democrats elected. One of the biggest groups to emerge from the new wave of “resisters” is Indivisible, which was founded by a few liberal former congressional staffers and says it wants to borrow tactics from the Tea Party, as it did when it inspired the raucous protests at town hall meetings that helped turn the tide against Obamacare repeal.This enthusiasm has gotten the traditional Democratic donors and fund-raisers excited: From longstanding groups like Democracy Alliance to liberal tech entrepreneurs, money is pouring into Indivisible and similar organizations. But often these groups have focused on influencing Democrats or getting them elected (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) rather than building a broader movement.The Indivisible activists should be making common cause with another movement that has surged since the election: the Democratic Socialists of America, an activist group that works on both national and local levels, has grown to about 30,000 members from about 5,000 since the election, largely driven by its association with Bernie Sanders, who, though not a member, also identifies as a democratic socialist. (Disclosure: I’m a member.)New members of the D.S.A., most of them millennials, have instinctively recognized the need for radical wealth redistribution, forming what the group’s national director, Maria Svart, calls “the left wing of the resistance.”The D.S.A. — which isn’t a political party — has supported some left-wing candidates across the country, from the Brooklyn City Council to a Virginia House race. But even as it is willing to work with some Democratic candidates or with Democrats on specific issues, its focus is pushing a broader agenda for equality, such as making the case for single-payer health care, while criticizing capitalism itself for driving upward redistribution of wealth. That might make some traditional liberals and Democrats uncomfortable, but in order to resist Mr. Trump, we ought to be thinking about how we ended up with a yawning wealth gap in the first place.If the resistance is going to turn into a vital, sustainable left-wing social movement, it has to build strong relationships and share its resources with the people who are most affected by oppressive economic policies, sexism, xenophobia and racism.“I come from a people who’ve been resisting for the past several centuries in this country,” Charlene Carruthers told me recently when we discussed activism since the election. Ms. Carruthers is the national director of Black Youth Project 100, a racial justice organization for black youth founded in Chicago and active in a dozen states. The best first step after a shock like the election isn’t just to throw yourself into a churn of activity, Ms. Carruthers said, but to “listen to the people who aren’t shocked.”Among the many activists I’ve spoken with in recent weeks, racial justice organizers have been the most nonplused about liberals’ newfound sense of urgency. Many of the people they see taking stands against Mr. Trump are the same who have shown little respect for their issues and communities in the past. Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, is a perfect example: He declared his city a “Trump-free zone” after the president’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. It might be good optics, but his mayorship has been anything but progressive on issues like policing, labor unions and schools.***THE ELECTION HAS GALVANIZED activists of all kinds. After Hillary Clinton’s poor performance with working-class white voters, many on the left have realized that this constituency deserves more of its attention. I spoke recently to Kate Hess Pace, who founded Hoosier Action in her home state of Indiana, a membership organization for working-class Indianans who, with the decline of unions, have few ways of influencing politics. The group has brought members to Washington to lobby their senators on health care, among other actions. Ms. Pace says that most of the people she talks to in Indiana don’t hate Democrats or Republicans, but “outsiders,” people in Washington who have caused their state’s decline.Some new members of the resistance may have people they can turn to easily for guidance: their kids. The radical movements calling attention to inequality and racism well before Mr. Trump’s election — from Occupy to the movement for black lives to a growing interest in socialism to the Dreamers protests — have been driven by millennials. And these movements are eager to grow.There’s a reason that young people were taking up activism and protest years before “President Donald Trump” was a phrase anyone could imagine: Racism, sexism and inequality are nothing new. Mr. Trump’s election just ripped the polite veneer off American politics. In the process, I hope, he’s woken up a lot more people to the deep problems in our society.“Many people that become deeply discontent with the status quo have some moment in their lives when all of a sudden they realize that what they’ve been taught are lies,” said Stuart McIntyre, a 27-year-old activist with the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, an umbrella group with much of the membership coming from black-led organizations in Ohio’s cities that has also seen an influx of new members since the election. “In my experience, a lot of people of color have that ‘mirror moment’ when they’re children. Among left-wing groups, a lot of people maybe have that moment in college. But for a lot of middle-class people, and for a lot of white Americans, that mirror moment is actually happening right now.” That’s a good thing.“I’m looking for converts rather than for traitors,” Mr. McIntyre said. “I want our movement to be as big as possible.”

The FOMC confirmed an interest-rate increase could come in December. Powell is almost certainly the new Fed head.

By Randall W. Forsyth.Jerome Powell, governor of the U.S. Federal Reserve Zach Gibson/Bloomberg

The Federal Open Market Committee Wednesday confirmed the expectations of virtually everybody that another interest-rate increase is all but certain in December. The real question is, what then?At this writing, two high-probability events lie ahead. President Donald Trump Thursday is expected to name Federal Reserve governor Jerome Powell to succeed Janet Yellen when her term as chair of the Fed’s Board of Governors expires in February. The Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday that the White House has notified Powell of the president’s intention to nominate him, quoting a person familiar with the matter. The FOMC also is highly likely to raise its key policy interest rate another quarter point at its next regularly scheduled meeting in mid-December. Federal-funds futures contracts place an 87.5% probability of a boost from the current 1%-1.25% target range next month, which is pretty close to a lock.Once new leadership is in place at the Fed next year, however, the course of monetary policy is less certain. Based on the FOMC statement, which emphasized job gains have continued at “a solid rate despite hurricane-related disruptions,” it would appear the central bank would be on track for three additional quarter-point hikes in 2018, which the panel indicated in its “dot plot” for fed funds at the end of next year. For its part, fed-funds futures market is pricing in only one more increase in 2018 after the anticipated rise next month.Given that Powell is seen as a consensus builder who is in the Yellen mold (but a Republican to satisfy a GOP-controlled White House and Congress), little deviation should be expected. That is, if the economy continues to progress at its steady pace with inflation under the Fed’s 2% target.Indeed, Fed policy may be the least unknown unknown, to use the terminology of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the financial markets have to confront. At the same time, growth among economies around the globe is moving ahead in sync while inflation pressures, at least as measured in the widely watched indexes, are in check. Far greater uncertainty looms on other fronts, most notably U.S. taxes. The House Ways and Means tax package was delayed a day until Thursday. Even once the tax-writing panel’s plan is out, there remains a long road through the Senate, as well as a likely conference after that, before a bill reaches the president’s desk. Health-care reform shows what an arduous path that can be.Then there is the specter of global geopolitical conflict and the impact of internecine political fighting at home. None of which, however, has deterred the major market indexes, both in the U.S. and abroad, from climbing to records—even after a terror attack in New York City Tuesday. Steady-as-she goes monetary policy from the Fed is one certainty in an uncertain world. The Fed may raise rates next month and next year, and shrink its balance sheet, but the markets are braced for it. The Treasury yield curve has narrowed to its flattest slope in a decade, with the spread in two-year versus 10-year notes down to 75 basis points, which implies the market has priced in higher short-term interest rates. The yield curve also is still positive, however, unlike the totally flat slope back in 2007, which portended a recession.That’s not a worry these days, given the strong readings among consumers and traders alike. But what was that saying about being fearful when others are greedy?

The Federal Reserve releases a statement at the conclusion of each of its policy-setting meetings, outlining the central bank’s economic outlook and the actions it plans to take. Much of the statement remains the same from meeting to meeting. Fed watchers closely parse changes between statements to see how the Fed’s views are evolving.This tool compares the latest statement with its immediate predecessor and highlights where policy makers have updated their language. This is the November statement compared with September.

Fed Statement Tracker

Select two statements to compare:

Sep 20, 2017→Nov 1, 2017show changeshide changes

Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in JulySeptemberindicates that the labor market has continued to strengthen and that economic activity has been rising moderately so far this year. Job gains have remained solid in recent months, andat a solid rate despite hurricane-related disruptions. Although the hurricanes caused a drop in payroll employment in September,the unemployment rate has stayed lowdeclined further. Household spending has been expanding at a moderate rate, and growth in business fixed investment has picked up in recent quarters. On a 12-month basis, overall inflation and the measure excluding food and energy pricGasoline prices rose in the aftermath of the hurricanes, boosting overall inflation in September; however, inflation for items other than food and energy remained soft. On a 12-month basis, both inflation measures have declined this year and are running below 2 percent. Market-based measures of inflation compensation remain low; survey-based measures of longer-term inflation expectations are little changed, on balance.

Consistent with its statutory mandate, the Committee seeks to foster maximum employment and price stability. Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria have devastated many communities, inflicting severe hardship. Storm-related disruptions and rebuilding will continue toaffect economic activity, employment, and inflationin the near term, but past experience suggests that the storms are unlikely to materially alter the course of the national economy over the medium term. Consequently, the Committee continues to expect that, with gradual adjustments in the stance of monetary policy, economic activity will expand at a moderate pace, and labor market conditions will strengthen somewhat further. Higher prices for gasoline and some other items in the aftermath of the hurricanes will likely boost inflation temporarily; apart from that effect, iInflation on a 12-month basis is expected to remain somewhat below 2 percent in the near term but to stabilize around the Committee's 2 percent objective over the medium term. Near-term risks to the economic outlook appear roughly balanced, but the Committee is monitoring inflation developments closely.

In view of realized and expected labor market conditions and inflation, the Committee decided to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 1 to 1-1/4 percent. The stance of monetary policy remains accommodative, thereby supporting some further strengthening in labor market conditions and a sustained return to 2 percent inflation.

In determining the timing and size of future adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate, the Committee will assess realized and expected economic conditions relative to its objectives of maximum employment and 2 percent inflation. This assessment will take into account a wide range of information, including measures of labor market conditions, indicators of inflation pressures and inflation expectations, and readings on financial and international developments. The Committee will carefully monitor actual and expected inflation developments relative to its symmetric inflation goal.

The Committee expects that economic conditions will evolve in a manner that will warrant gradual increases in the federal funds rate; the federal funds rate is likely to remain, for some time, below levels that are expected to prevail in the longer run. However, the actual path of the federal funds rate will depend on the economic outlook as informed by incoming data.

In October, the Committee will initiate the balance sheet normalization program described in the June 2017 Addendum to the Committee's Policy Normalization Principles and PlansThe balance sheet normalization program initiated in October 2017 is proceeding.

The asset manager is most worried about Nafta, a North Korea conflict and U.S.-China tensions.

By Isabelle Mateos y Lago

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STR/AFP/Getty Images

Markets may be a sea of calm, but geopolitics are anything but. We have our eyes on 10 geopolitical risks and are tracking their likelihood and potential market impact. So which ones are we most worried about? Here are our top three right now, with the second and third particularly interrelated.

Nafta

The fourth round of North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) renegotiations ended this week, with Mexico and Canada rejecting what they view as harsh U.S. proposals. Still, news reports did suggest apparent progress on less contentious parts of the agreement, and the negotiations aren’t over. The next round of talks are scheduled to take place in Mexico next month.Our base case is that successful negotiations will be completed in early 2018. However, our hopes for this outcome have recently diminished given tough positions from U.S. negotiators and threatening rhetoric from U.S. President Donald Trump that has resulted in greater uncertainty. Market risks are biased to the downside given that a good outcome is priced in, in both Canadian and Mexican markets.

North Korea

We view North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons program as a major threat to regional stability, U.S. security and nuclear non-proliferation. The possibility of armed conflict has risen, we believe, given North Korea’s missile launches over Japan, a nuclear test and an intense war of words. This has raised the chance of misstep or miscalculation, and we could see limited action such as the shooting down of missiles.Yet we currently see a low probability of all-out war; the costs are too high on all sides. Instead, we expect the U.S. to intensify its “peaceful pressure” campaign, evident in imposing unilateral sanctions and leaning hard on China to participate. We see the crisis straining U.S.-China relations just as economic tensions are rising.

Deteriorating U.S.-China relations

We see frictions between the U.S. and China heating up over time. The countries risk falling into the “Thucydides Trap,” a term coined by Harvard scholar Graham Allison to describe clashes between rising powers and established ones. We see trade and market access disputes straining an increasingly competitive U.S.-China relationship in the long run, and believe markets have yet to factor in this gradual deterioration.

In the short term, tensions could rise if Chinese President Xi Jinping pursues an even more nationalistic agenda in the wake of the National People’s Congress. Economic tit for tats could lead to an erosion of relations—and have sector-specific effects.U.S. military action against North Korea and/or an accidental clash in the South China Sea would deal a blow to the relationship, in our view, and hurt risk assets. But our base case is that the U.S. and China avoid these land mines in the short term, and try to use President Trump’s upcoming visit to emphasize cooperation.So what does this all mean for portfolios? Most geopolitical shocks have short-lived market impacts, except in regions directly affected. We view long-term government bonds as useful diversifiers against volatility and equity market selloffs sparked by such shocks.

If you know the other and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

Sun Tzu

We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share.This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.